The cost of a career: NFL players and bankruptcy

By Christopher Dabe

Updated 9:43 am, Friday, April 27, 2012

Former NFL player Frank Middleton at his home in Beaumont.
Photo taken Thursday, April 19, 2012
Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise
Photo: Guiseppe Barranco, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Former NFL player Frank Middleton at his home in Beaumont.
Photo...

Former NFL player Frank Middleton at his home in Beaumont.
Photo taken Thursday, April 19, 2012
Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise
Photo: Guiseppe Barranco, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Former NFL player Frank Middleton at his home in Beaumont.
Photo...

This is a side view of the Nina. Replicas of the Nina and Pinta wooden ships that Christopher Columbus sailed to America docked in Lake Charles Thursday April 19, 2012 behind the Civic Center on Lake-shore Drive. The replicas have been touted as the most precise copies of the ships to have been made. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise
Photo: Dave Ryan

With one five-bedroom house in California and another in Beaumont, Frank Middleton had to choose.

He could continue to live a lavish lifestyle. Or he could scale back to something more manageable.

Middleton, a West Brook graduate who earned roughly $21 million during his eight-year National Football League career, said he made mistakes early that cost him dearly. At one point, Middleton lost so much money that "it still makes me sad," he said.

Those are lessons Kelly graduate Kheeston Randall (Texas) and East Chambers graduate Tramain Thomas (Arkansas) might learn soon after an NFL team picks them in the three-day college player draft that starts Thursday.

If selected, Randall and Thomas could join a small group of Southeast Texans who currently have lucrative NFL contracts. Jamaal Charles (five years, $32.5 million), Earl Thomas (five years, $21.1 million) and Sean Weatherspoon (five years, $17.5 million) are among them.

For now, they enjoy the large paychecks that come with their status as NFL starters. But they must be careful.

According to Sports Illustrated, roughly 78 percent of NFL players are bankrupt or under financial stress within two years of retirement.

Former NFL player Warren Sapp recently filed for bankruptcy, claiming $6.7 million of debt after making an estimated $60 million during a 13-year playing career, he told the Tampa Bay Times.

Among his listed assets are 240 pairs of sneakers and a large painting of a naked woman in his bedroom.

Sapp, 39, is only the most recent example of an athlete gone broke.

Athletes in other sports such as baseball's Lenny Dykstra and basketball's Antoine Walker also recently filed for bankruptcy after being among the highest-paid players in their sports. Things have worsened for Dykstra, recently charged with bankruptcy fraud by U.S. prosecutors, according to The Associated Press.

Most pro athletes are young, with an earnings potential that seems limitless. But the amount they sign for far exceeds the amount that reaches their bank accounts.

A $1 million salary quickly becomes about $600,000 because of taxes.

Then spending habits are a factor.

Port Arthur native Jordan Babineaux, a defensive back for the Tennessee Titans, said an athlete with a $1 million home and a $7,000 monthly mortgage is a conservative estimate.

Then, he said, spend $2,000 a month on a pair of cars "and you're almost at 10 grand."

"Then you have insurance, cable, a cell phone - and you haven't even spent money on yourself yet. You haven't bought a pair of shoes, a nice watch or anything like that."

Babineaux said the lure to spend comes with trying to match the size of the paycheck that comes during the season - NFL players receive paychecks only on a per-game basis.

"If you want to get something new or go on vacation, and deservedly so - we all deserve it," he said. "But you have to remember it won't last forever."

For NFL players, their income depends largely on how long they stay healthy and effective enough to hold a roster spot. Most NFL contracts are not guaranteed, meaning teams can release players without owing them the balance of their contract.

"Then you ask a question: Do I try to keep a lifestyle and pay mortgages on these houses and do everything like I'm still rich?" said Middleton. "Or do I downsize and be comfortable and not have to worry about getting a job?"

Babineaux and his brother Jonathan, also an NFL player, are taking steps to avoid facing that question.

After they lost what Jordan said was a "substantial" amount of money on a Houston-area restaurant chain that went bust, they became more cautious about how they invested, pooling together some resources into what they call "Team Babs."

"My question now is, 'What can you do for me?'"

Jordan Babineaux said. "You can have a great idea. But a great idea isn't anything when I know all the financial risk is on me."

Jordan, 29, recently participated in the NFL-sponsored Hollywood Boot Camp, a four-day workshop to teach players the basics of filmmaking which will help him pursue his post-NFL goal of being a television or movie producer. The Babineauxs also share a filmmaking company called Two Brothers Productions, and they recently released their first feature film, entitled "Woman Thou Art Loosed: On the 7th Day," shown in roughly 100 theaters nationwide.

Jonathan plans to do the Hollywood Boot Camp next year.

"We both graduated with college degrees," said Jonathan, an Iowa graduate and a defensive tackle with the Atlanta Falcons. "We want to do the necessary things to take care of our families."

NFL players can avoid additional problems by setting aside money to be dispersed after their playing careers, said Beaumont attorney Brent Coon, who has helped clients win large settlements in a number of high-profile cases.

"Those who don't look down the road, they all wish they had invested the money better," Coon said. "They buy a lot of expensive things that depreciate quickly."

Now, more than seven years removed from his final NFL game, Middleton is married with three daughters between ages 8 and 14.

He no longer owns a house in California, and he now lives in a four-bedroom house in Beaumont with enough money socked away to live comfortably without holding a regular job. He decided to stop coaching at Kelly after last season.

Some of Middleton's mistakes were giving a cousin who wanted to write a children's book that never got published $10,000. He also gave "$20,000 or $30,000" to a friend who claimed she needed to restart her life after her husband threw her out of their house in Lubbock, only to spot the couple getting out of a new car together later in Beaumont.